Secondhand Smoke & Children

For people in a home environment - especially children - exposure to secondhand smoke is a significant health risk.

Tobacco smoke spreads through the house, carrying over sixty known cancer-causing agents, plus more than 4000 other harmful chemicals. Secondhand smoke affects everyone - babies, children, partners, friends, and even pets.

Second hand smoke can be particularly harmful to babies.

Children are more at risk from second-hand smoke for several reasons. Early in life their lungs are still growing and developing, and they may have less immunity to many germs that cause lung infections. Therefore their lungs are more easily harmed. 

Children, who live in houses where people smoke indoors, are all at higher risk of developing smoking-related illness. They are more likely to get bronchitis, pneumonia and other infections of the lung and airways. Tobacco smoke makes children’s asthma worse. Children of smokers are more like to have coughs and wheezes. They are also prone to diseases of the middle ear (‘glue ear’), breathing problems.

Exposure to second-hand smoke has also been linked to learning and behavioural problems.

Children spend a lot of time at home indoors, especially very young pre-school children. 42% of British children live in a household where at least one person smokes. Most children don't feel they can get up and move somewhere else, so they're usually trapped in the same room as the smoking adult.

Make your home and car smokefree

If you aren't ready to stop smoking, remember that you can still have a smokefree home.  Protect your children from smoke in whatever way you can – remember that smoke is especially dangerous for babies and very small children.

Creating a smokefree home takes a little time to get used to, but it can be done. Making children safe is usually just a matter of making a few changes to where people smoke. It just means everyone agreeing to smoke outside – this applies both to people who live in the house and visitors.

Why not make your home smoke free?

Sometimes people are very reluctant to change. It’s difficult to ask family and friends to change their habits, but if they smoke around your children, you will need to find a way to ask them not to. 

Explain the dangers to your children's health from second-hand smoke, and ask people not to smoke near them. Some people find that using non-smoking stickers around the home sends a clear message to others. Point out that you're not telling them to quit, but simply asking them to smoke outside, away from the children. You can set up a place outside where you and others can smoke (away from windows and doors). Before too long, most smokers become used to smoking outside and find it hard to imagine smoking indoors.

Smokefree Home Checklist:

1. Decide on a date when your home will go smokefree.
2. Don't smoke inside the house or allow other people to do so.
3. Remove all the smoking ‘cues’ from inside the home – matches, lighters and ashtrays.
4. Put a non-smoking sticker on the front door to let friends and relatives know that smoking is no longer allowed inside the house.
5. Ask smokers to smoke outdoors, and set aside a comfortable area where they can smoke. Make sure smoke don’t drift from here to open doors and windows.
6. When visitors come who smoke, explain that you no longer smoke indoors. Show them where they can smoke.
7. Keep a warm jacket and scarf handy for smoking when the weather is cold.

Remember to tell adults who look after your children, that you don’t want your children exposed to second-hand smoke. Most adults understand that secondhand smoke is bad for children and people are choosing to protect children from second-hand smoke.